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Innovation and the Financial Guillotine

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  • Ramana Nanda
  • Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Abstract

Our paper demonstrates that while failure tolerance by investors may encourage potential entrepreneurs to innovate, financiers with investment strategies that tolerate early failure endogenously choose to fund less radical innovations. Failure tolerance as an equilibrium price that increases in the level of experimentation. More experimental projects that don't generate enough to pay the price cannot be started. In equilibrium all competing financiers may choose to offer failure tolerant contracts to attract entrepreneurs, leaving no capital to fund the most radical, experimental projects. The tradeoff between failure tolerance and a sharp guillotine helps explain when and where radical innovation occurs.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramana Nanda & Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, 2013. "Innovation and the Financial Guillotine," NBER Working Papers 19379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19379
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    Cited by:

    1. Nanda, Ramana & Rhodes-Kropf, Matthew, 2013. "Investment cycles and startup innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 403-418.
    2. Guzman, Jorge & Kacperczyk, Aleksandra, 2018. "Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship," SocArXiv z5he2, Center for Open Science.
    3. Jason Roderick Donaldson & Giorgia Piacentino & Anjan Thakor, 2021. "Intermediation Variety," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 3103-3152, December.
    4. Isin Guler, 2018. "Pulling the Plug: The Capability to Terminate Unsuccessful Projects and Firm Performance," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 481-497, September.
    5. Guzman, Jorge & Kacperczyk, Aleksandra (Olenka), 2019. "Gender gap in entrepreneurship," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1666-1680.
    6. Robert N. Eberhart & Charles E. Eesley, 2018. "The dark side of institutional intermediaries: Junior stock exchanges and entrepreneurship," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(10), pages 2643-2665, October.
    7. Khanna, Naveen & Mathews, Richmond D., 2022. "Skill versus reliability in venture capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 41-63.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G39 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Other
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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